Personal or Scenarios Factors?: Research on Knowledge Accumulation of Novice Engineers

This paper describes how to accumulate knowledge during solving complex engineering problems for novice engineers. The purpose of this study is to find important factors that have significant influence on knowledge accumulation (KA) behavior of novice engineers in solving complex problems. This study uses data from a sample of 185 novice engineers in Chinese manufacturing firms and employs structural equation modelling approach to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings of this study indicate that knowledge accumulation rely more on the features of problem solver and context factors. Contrary to expectation, complex problem characteristics do not make a significant and direct contribution to motivate knowledge accumulation. These variables collectively would help to explain the novice engineers' knowledge accumulation in solving complex engineering problems. Implications, limitations, and future scope of the study have also been discussed.